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Class _-B-V--4S 01 



Book 










Copyright N°_ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



The Man Who Said 
He Would 



By the 
Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, D. D., 

Author of lt The Secret of A Happy Day," 

11 Day by Day," " From Life to Life," 

11 Spiritual Life in the Sunday 

School," etc., etc. 




United Society of Christian Endeavor 
Boston and Chicago 






"rHr\«*BRARV OF 

CONGRESS, 
~ »"-> Cowee Reobved 

AUG. It 1902 

Copyright shtrv 

CLASSPct XXa No. 

COPY B. 



Copyright, igo2 
BY THE 

United Society of Christian Endeavor 



TO THE 

REV. S. C. DICKEY, D. D., 

AN HONORED SERVANT OF GOD, THIS BOOK 
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 



Contents 



CHAP. PAGE 

I. The Man Who Said He Would 

— and Didn't 9 

II. The Man Who Said He Would 

— and Wouldn't - - -28 

III. The Man Who Said He Would 

— and Couldn't - - - 49 

IV. The Man Who Said He Would 

— and Did - - - - 68 



Introduction. 



Foe the suggestion of the outline of 
this book I am indebted to the pastors 
of the churches in Middletown, Ohio, and 
for permission to use the same to the 
Kev. W. Hamil Shields, pastor of the 
First Presbyterian Church. 

This message is sent forth with the 
prayer that God may help us all to lay 
hold upon Him who will enable us to 
fulfil and perform our resolutions. 



vu 



The Man Who Said He Would 



CHAPTER I. 

THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD— AND 

DID N'T. 

Texts : Though I should die with thee, yet will I 
not deny thee.— Matthew 26 : 35. 

Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I 
know not the man. — Matthew 26 : 74. 

It would not be possible to imagine a 
greater contrast than that which is pre- 
sented in the reading of these two texts 
of Scripture. In the one we are sur- 
rounded by that peculiar kind of atmos- 
phere which always attends a confession 
of Christ, and we find our hearts glow- 
ing as we too say with Peter : " Dear 
Lord, this is exactly our own thought. 
We would die for thee a thousand times, 

9 



10 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

if that were possible, rather than deny 
thee once." In the experience of the 
second text we are plunged into the 
depths of darkness. "We find ourselves 
shuddering as we say, " If the man who 
but a little time ago said he would die 
rather than deny Christ can curse and 
swear and say he knows him not, what 
hope is there for any of us ? " 

There are but thirty-eight verses be- 
tween these two experiences, all of which 
leads me to say that we must walk care- 
fully in the midst of this sinful and adul- 
terous generation, for we who are prais- 
ing Christ to-day may be crucifying him 
to-morrow, if for a little moment we 
take our eyes away from him. 

In James the third chapter, the elev- 
enth and twelfth verses, we read : " Doth 
a fountain send forth at the same place 
sweet water and bitter ? Can the fig-tree, 
my brethren, bear olive berries ? either a 
vine figs ? so can no fountain both yield 
salt water and fresh." Yet in these two 
texts which I have quoted we have an il- 
lustration of the bitter waters and the 



—AND DIDN'T. 11 

sweet coming forth from the same lips, 
for it is the same man that is described 
by both the texts. 

I do not know in any part of the Scrip- 
tures a better illustration of great con- 
trast. The pendulum which swings one 
way and thrills us as we hear the words 
of loyalty of this disciple of Christ, swings 
quite as far the other way, and we are 
plunged into despair when we find the 
same man denying with oaths that he 
ever knew him. 

We are all of us familiar with Steven- 
son's book, " Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde " ; 
yet this story is no illustration of the 
man whose experience I here portray, for 
Peter was not dishonest, neither was he 
hypocritical, but there were two Peters 
speaking here. He himself speaks of the 
" hidden man of the heart," and Paul de- 
scribes our two natures, one of which is 
ours in natural birth, and the other ours 
because of regeneration. In every one of 
us, if we are Christians, these two natures 
are quite as distinct as our two hands. 
To live in the flesh is at the cost of the 



12 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

spirit, while to live in the spirit is at the 
cost of the flesh; and these words of 
Scripture above quoted present us an il- 
lustration of the fact that any one of us 
may come to the place of denial if we 
turn our eyes away from Christ and en- 
courage within us that which is basest. 

It would be well for us to learn, if pos- 
sible, the uncleanness of the human 
heart. The Old Testament declares it to 
be " deceitful above all things and des- 
perately wicked," while in the New Tes- 
tament we read, " For from within, out 
of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, 
adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, 
covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciv- 
iousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, 
foolishness; all these evil things come 
from within, and defile the man " (Mark 
7: 21-23). You might be incensed if I 
should make this observation myself, but 
when God makes it we can only bow 
our heads in shame and say, "Alas, this 
is too true 1 " Peter meant what he said 
in the first Scripture ; he was not a hypo- 
crite. Hypocrisy was as foreign to his 



— AND DIDN'T. 13 

nature as anything could possibly be. He 
never could play the hypocrite ; when he 
tried it, he made a dismal failure; yet 
this man, who is naturally honest and 
really courageous, comes before us as a 
great warning, and we look and grow 
afraid as we say, "If Peter falls, who 
then can stand ? " We, too, have made 
certain promises to Christ and we have 
failed ; and, when I present to you the 
man who said he would and did n't, I am 
but painting for you your own portrait ; 
at least, portraying your own past experi- 
ence. 

I. Some Notes of "Wakning. 

First, let us learn that great promi- 
nence in the Christian life will not keep 
us from falling. Peter was one of the 
chosen three ; he was with Jesus in the 
home of Jairus, on the mount of trans- 
figuration, and in the Garden of Geth- 
semane ; yet he fell. Let us not imagine, 
because we may be exalted in Christian 
service, that therefore there is little 
chance of our denying Christ ; even the 



14 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

minister of the gospel, the officer in the 
church, the superintendent of the Sun- 
day-school, and the faithful teacher of to- 
day may deny Christ to-morrow, if for a 
moment the eyes of faith are taken 
away from him and there is the least 
disposition or tendency to rely upon 
one's self. 

Second, let us also learn that our dan- 
ger is not where we are weakest; it is 
because we have forgotten this that 
oftentimes we have fallen into despair. 
Peter's characteristic was honesty, and 
yet he fell into deceit; Peter's nature 
was courageous, and yet he gives an ex- 
hibition of cowardice ; Job was a most 
patient man, and yet became impatient. 
Do not say that you will not fail at this 
point or that because there is your 
strength, for in the consciousness of 
strength Satan may overthrow you. I 
have found myself saying that I was 
quite sure that I should never fall into 
sin so far as temptation to drink was 
concerned, but I have studied Peter only 
to realize that the man that thinketh he 



— AND DIDN'T. 15 

standeth ought to take heed lest he fall. 
The chances are that you will never fail 
at your weak point, but rather where all 
along the journey of your life you 
thought you would stand, if you are to 
fail at all. 

Third, there are two dangers before us 
in the struggle in life, and the first conies 
from without from our great adversary, 
the devil, whose personality I am sure is 
unquestioned. He does the work of a 
person, and many of us have felt in all 
our struggles with him that he is vastly 
more than an influence. There are two 
ways in which he works. In one he is 
described as a roaring lion, and in this 
respect is not so much to be feared, for in 
his roaring we may detect his presence, 
and, realizing his nearness, we may flee 
away from him. 

A man staggered into my presence the 
other day, and told me that he had lost 
everything ; reputation, home, peace, and 
even his soul; and his very misery was 
but the sounding forth of the roar of the 
lion. That man who has broken the 



16 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

heart of his wife and is himself in despair 
because he feels himself beyond hope is 
but another roar of the lion. 

But the other way in which he works 
is much more dangerous. "When the 
Master was speaking to Peter of the 
work of the adversary, he said, " Simon, 
Simon, Satan has desired you that he may 
sift you as wheat." Those of you who 
are familiar with the sifting of the hus- 
bandman know that he sifts the wheat 
that he may separate it from the chaff 
and the dirt; but Satan's sifting is of 
quite another sort ; he sifts that he may 
separate the wheat from the chaff and 
the dirt, and keeps only that which is 
refuse. Alas ! he has been sifting some 
of us. We have lost our honesty and 
our zeal and our faithfulness and our 
spirit of loyalty ; these things have gone 
from us without our scarcely knowing it, 
and we are day by day having less and 
less of the wheat and more and more of 
the chaff, and there is danger ahead. 

The second great obstacle against 
which we must strive is from within. 






—AND DIDJSTT. 17 

Man's worst enemy is himself; so the 
Scripture is right when it declares that 
he that ruleth his spirit is better than 
he that taketh a city. Outward sin is 
just the cropping out of an inward con- 
dition. There is a difference between sin 
and sins. It is the same difference that 
we find between the root and fruit. Let 
us not find ourselves smiling at little 
sins, passing them over with indifference ; 
for, as a rising temperature in a fever 
patient tells of an alarming condition, so 
the commission of sins tells of the weak- 
ness of the human heart. It was not 
just an impulse with Peter to deny his 
Master; if so, his sin might have been 
more excusable. We have all of us found 
ourselves suddenly in sin, and I believe 
that because of our being taken unawares 
and tripped up by our adversary our 
Master is willing to show us special con- 
sideration. But with Peter all his sad 
failure was just a natural outcome of his 
self-consciousness and pride, his being 
headstrong and following afar off; and 
that is the trouble with the most of us. 



18 THE 31 AN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

We have failed at this point without 
being alarmed, when suddenly we are 
face to face with an awful transgression 
which all but wrecks our hopes for the 
future. 

The sea-wall of Holland falls not be- 
cause of the shock of the billows, for the 
waves have broken against it for years ; 
but because a little stream has percolated 
through the foundation and undermined 
it. The strong oak in the forest goes 
down, not because of the tempests, for it 
has locked its branches with the arms of the 
storms for years and has not fallen ; but it 
is down because the heart of it is decayed. 
God save us from little sins, for these are 
but the precursors of a coming wreck. 

II. Why He Failed. 

It is necessary that we should enlarge 
a little bit on the cause of Peter's failure, 
and explain, if we can, why he said he 
would and did n't. 

First, he was self-confident. The most 
confident swimmers are in the greatest 
danger of drowning ; the most conceited 



— AND DIDN'T. 19 

drivers oftenest overthrow the coach. I 
know of a man who was rescued from the 
horrible pit and really had his feet estab- 
lished upon the rock. He was restored 
to his former position of usefulness and 
power, and said again and again to me, 
" I shall never fail again," and he was 
like a strong man rejoicing to run a race ; 
but I knew that he would fail, and the 
other day the tidings came that he was 
once more shipwrecked, hopeless and 
helpless, plunged into the depths of 
despair. 

God knows you best, and he has writ- 
ten in large letters in his book, " Let him 
that thinketh he standeth take heed lest 
he fall," and Paul learned this lesson 
when he said, " When I am weak, then 
am I strong." 

Second, he was with the enemies of 
Christ. It is supposed that both Peter 
and John entered into the presence of 
Jesus at the time of his trial. Peter had 
a chance of either going straight up to 
the Master or lingering with the servants 
about the fire, and he made the sad mis- 



20 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

take of doing the latter. If he had stood 
close to Jesus, his promise would have 
been kept, and he would have died rather 
than deny his Lord ; but the old Scotch 
woman was right when she said, " He had 
nae business among the flunkeys.-' You. 
cannot stand in the presence of the 
enemies of Christ without some distinct 
mark to show that you are a Christian. 
There are many of us in our business who 
are obliged to associate with the people 
of the world, and it is possible for us to 
go to the very brink of hell, if need be, 
without even the smell of fire upon our 
garments, if we boldly take our stand for 
Christ and proclaim our allegiance to 
him ; but, if there is the least disposition 
to shrink back from this, there is danger. 
Third, he made little of being near to 
Christ. When Jesus took the chosen 
three into the Garden of Gethsemane, and 
then staggered away into the gloom of 
the night as if he were already bearing 
the weight of the world's woe, he bows 
in prayer, and then, rising with blood- 
marks upon his face, he goes back to his 



—AND DIDN'T. 21 

disciples for just a word of sympathy 
from him who had said, " Though I should 
die with thee, yet will I not deny thee," 
and finds him asleep. To be occupied 
with Christ is the secret of preservation ; 
to be longing for the world is the sign of 
weakness and an indication of the fact 
that we do not know him. What a com- 
fort it would be if we could take Christ 
into our homes, bow at his feet, reach up 
and touch his hand, listen to his voice, 
and what a joy it is to know that this is 
exactly what we may do, for in the per- 
son of the Spirit of God he is here to-day, 
and, alas ! in his presence we have allowed 
ourselves to fall asleep and to grow indif- 
ferent. If one would but walk with his 
eyes fixed upon Christ, it would be all 
but impossible to stumble and fall. 

III. His Keturis t . 

The greatest encouragement we have 
in the study of this man who said he 
would and did n't is that he turned back 
again to Christ, and this was all because 
his faith failed not. His courage failed 



22 THE 31 AN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

him ; his self-respect failed him ; his good 
reputation had failed ; but his faith was 
like an anchor, and just as we have seen 
a boat tossed to and fro by the waves, 
and yet not overthrown, because the 
anchor held, so Peter's faith gripped him 
to Christ, and so may ours hold us to Him 
that cannot be moved. When we think 
of Peter falling, we wonder who can 
stand ; yet, when we remember how he 
ran back to Jesus, when he looked at 
Jesus how he was transformed by the 
power of Christ until he rebuked the 
very men that crucified his Lord, and 
how he wrote his epistles, there is hope 
for every one of us. 

IY. Some Observations. 

First, man's usefulness ordinarily 
springs out of some great recovery. We 
have but to remember the story of David 
and also this account of Peter, which 
proves this statement. 

Mr. S. H. Hadley, of the old Water 
Street Mission, rescued twenty years ago 
from the awful curse of intemperance, by 



—AND DIDN'T. 23 

his very fall has been given, a sympathy 
for lost and dying men that is almost 
superhuman; and he has gone up and 
down the streets of New York like an 
angel of mercy, whispering hope to every 
downcast, discouraged soul whose atten- 
tion he could gain. I think I know why 
Peter was chosen to preach. As a mat- 
ter of fact we should hardly allow him to 
preach in these days, shame upon us for 
the truth of this statement ! — but Jesus lets 
him preach because of the fact that no 
one could tell him that he had fallen so 
low that he could not repent, that he was 
too weak to be helped, or that he was too 
hopeless to be saved. The man who spat 
in Christ's face might say, " But, Peter, I 
spat upon him ; " and the one who smote 
him with a rod could say, " I brought the 
blood from his blessed face;" and the 
one who thrust his heart through with a 
spear, " I thrust him through and through 
with this spear of mine; can there be 
hope for us ? " and Peter could say : " But 
you did not know him, and I did ; and I 
denied him, and I have been forgiven. 



24 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

He met me on the shore of the Sea of 
Galilee, and brushed away every thought 
of my denial, and took me back again into 
the embrace of his loving arms ; so there 
is hope for every suffering one." 

Second, in this story we get a fresh 
glimpse of the Saviour. When we think 
of him as the God of Abraham, he is the 
strength of his people ; and as the God of 
Jacob he has power to change and trans- 
form the life ; as the God of Elijah he 
answers prayer ; as the Saviour of Thomas 
he deals with doubt ; and as the Saviour 
of Paul he is the helper in every time of 
trouble and of need, even for those whose 
minds are the greatest ; but as the Saviour 
of Peter he is an encouragement to all 
who have wandered and fallen. 

A ministerial friend of mine said that 
on one occasion he was preaching in a 
certain church in the afternoon, and after 
the service a gentleman asked him whether 
he would not come to his house and take 
supper. He accepted the invitation, and 
as they were about entering the house the 
host said : " You are the first person who 



—AND DIDN'T. 25 

has been invited to break bread in my 
house for seventeen years. I have an im- 
becile son, and I treat him just as if he 
had his reason, and I have thought that 
it would not be pleasant for visitors in the 
home, and so I have not invited any ; but 
something that you said in your sermon 
to-day made me think that you would not 
mind it, and so I asked you to come." 
My friend expressed his sympathy with 
the father, and said he was very glad in- 
deed to accept the invitation. When it 
came time for the meal, the full-grown son 
was led in like a little child, and in all 
things during the meal the father and 
others ministered to him as if he were 
still an infant. 

When the supper was finished and they 
had gone into another room, the guest 
asked the father whether his son had al- 
ways been in that condition. And the 
father said : " No, indeed. When he was 
a child, he was one of the brightest boys 
that ever lived ; but when he was about 
six years old he was afflicted with a ter- 
rible disease ; and, although his body re- 



26 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

covered from it, his mind was gone. And 
now for seventeen years he has been just 
as you have seen him to-night." 

The minister said, " What a mercy it 
would have been if, when he was so sick, 
God had taken his life, instead of allow- 
ing him to grow up like this ! " 

Then the father burst into tears, and 
he said : " You could not have said any- 
thing else that would hurt me like that. 
I know he is an imbecile, but he is my 
son — he is my son." 

And, if you have wandered from God, 
I bring you the message that he loves 
you, and, having loved you, he will love 
you unto the end. 

The third observation is that, when 
Jesus prophesied this sifting of Satan, 
he said, u But I have prayed for thee." 
It is a great thing to have some one pray 
for us, but to know that Jesus prays is an 
increasing inspiration. O that God would 
open our eyes to realize that he is in the 
presence of Jehovah this very moment 
and that he will pray for us without ceas- 
ing! Dr. Arthur T. Pierson says that 



AND DIDN'T. 27 

when Peter fell he went down until he 
struck the prayers of Christ, and then he 
could fall no further. Thank God for 
this. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD— AND 
WOULD N'T. 

Text : And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God 
will— I will.— Genesis 28 : 20-22. 

And God would, but Jacob would not. 
This sentence tells the story of his entire 
career, and writes not only his own his- 
tory, but the history of very many of us 
who live at the present time. God is 
always willing to pour out upon us the 
best gifts of his great treasure-house. 
He has all but exhausted heaven upon 
us, has given us the Bible, sent us the 
Holy Ghost to make it plain, and, chief est 
of all, has given us his Son. " For God 
so loved the world that he gave his only 
begotten Son that whosoever believeth 
in him should not perish, but have ever- 
lasting life" (John 3': 16). 

It is only too true that the story of 

28 



— AND WOULDN'T. 29 

many a life of failure and despair may be 
written in this single sentence, " God 
would, and ye would not." 

Jacob comes suddenly before us in the 
story. We have the account of his birth 
and a description of his own appearance 
as well as that of Esau his brother ; and 
then we behold him as a man, deceitful 
above all things, but most interesting to 
us because of what he became under the 
touch of the hand of God. As Jacob 
appears, Isaac drops out of sight; and, 
although he lived for years after the de- 
ception was practised upon him, yet we 
hear little of him except the account of 
his death. We cannot calculate the end 
of men from their beginning. We re- 
member the fascinating story of Isaac 
and his father's willingness to sacrifice 
him on the mountain, and we say when 
we see the dawn of such a life that the 
sunset will be thus and so; but Isaac's 
story is an illustration of the fact that 
we cannot always tell. There are some 
lives the beauty of which we caii see 
only in the setting, and other lives the 



30 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

power of which we lose sight of after 
the dawn. Jacob belongs to the former 
company, while Isaac clearly may be 
classed with the latter. 

As a matter of fact, however, the story 
of Jacob is a story of our own experience 
in the main. His was a life of contrast 
just as is our own. To-day he is seeing 
angels, looking up into heaven and listen- 
ing to the voice of God, while to-morrow 
he is just as he was in other days, a man 
of weakness and making a miserable fail- 
ure of his life ; but this is the history of 
mankind, not of Jacob alone. To-day 
we are in a rapture, almost in heaven; 
indeed, all there but the body ; and to- 
morrow our faces are literally in the 
dust. To-day we are on the transfigura- 
tion mountain, wishing to build and 
stay there forever ; to-morrow we are in 
the valley with our ears filled with the 
complaints of those who are distressed 
and our attention taken up with the story 
of the sorrowing. 

But we cannot read the story of this 
man who said he would, and then 



— AND WOULDN'T. 31 

wouldn't, without realizing how bold 
the Bible is in its statements. It hides 
nothing of the story of our shame. It is 
not afraid to use the words that some- 
times make the cheek burn and compel 
us to bow our heads in confusion. It 
holds up to the light all that is found in 
the experience of men. "It is not a 
gallery of artistic figures, nor a gather- 
ing together of dramatic characters, but 
of living men and women whose true 
stories are told, as they pray, as they 
shout, and as they sing." God speaks 
about us that which is true, and perfectly 
describes men's hearts when he says, 
" Deceitful above all things and desper- 
ately wicked." 

And so naturally we have this story of 
Jacob told in its entirety. If we would 
appreciate his spirit of disloyalty to God 
and to his own vow to be true to him, we 
must rehearse again the story of the 
stolen birthright. Esau is weary with 
his hunting, and Jacob with his crafti- 
ness takes advantage of his weakness, 
and gives him the mess of pottage and 



32 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

claims the birthright. That birthright 
in the olden times was the right to be a 
priest in one's household and to lay 
claim to special covenant blessings with 
Jehovah ; but let us not be too hard upon 
Esau, for many of us have sold our birth- 
right for less than a mess of pottage; 
just for the enjoyment of one's sin, for 
the possession of one questionable thing, 
we have parted with that which would 
have given us the right to be the priests 
in our households. Do not condemn 
Esau, for in so doing you may condemn 
yourself. 

I learn also from Jacob's sad story 
that one sin follows another. Graces 
come with linked hands, it is said, and so 
do vices. Every grace is a link in the 
chain, and the chain binds us to heaven, 
while every sin is a link in the chain, 
and, alas ! this chain binds us to hell. 

If a man could commit but one sin and 
then stop, it would be bad enough ; but 
he never does. One sin makes it easier 
to commit another, and the end baffles 
description. How Jacob illustrates this ! 






— AND WOULDN'T. 33 

He first of all decides to defraud his 
brother and deceive his father. He must 
put on his brother's dress and make his 
way into the presence of the old man 
lying upon his couch, and he did deceive 
him by direct falsehood when he said, " I 
am Esau thy first-born ; I have done ac- 
cording as thou badest me : arise, I pray 
thee, sit and eat of my venison, that thy 
soul may bless me " (Gen. 27 : 19) ; and 
he made a blasphemous use of the name 
of Jehovah. "And Isaac said unto his 
son, How is it that thou hast found it so 
quickly, my son ? And he said, Because 
the Lord thy God brought it to me" 
(Gen. 27: 20). 

I have an idea that he supposed he 
could go into the presence of his father 
and by the very sound of his voice com- 
pel him to believe that he was Esau and 
not Jacob, but the old man draws him 
near to himself. What must have been 
his horror, therefore, when he felt his 
father's hand moving over the neck which 
had been covered with the skins of the 
kids and the goats, and also clasping his 



34 THE 31 AN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

hands ! His face must have grown pale 
and his heart gone throbbing like a trip- 
hammer, but this is the way with sinners 
always. You did not imagine when you 
committed that sin the other day that it 
was to draw in its wake other sins which 
would defeat you, but this also is true. 
You did not suppose when you took the 
first glass of wine that the almost inevi- 
table results of that one sin would be to 
make you a drunkard. 

A poor old waif, ragged and unkempt, 
stood looking in through the plate-glass 
window of a gilded saloon in New 
Orleans. Two fashionable young men 
noticed him, and one said to the other, 
" Say, let's do the good Samaritan, and 
set Hobo up to a drink." The other hila- 
riously consented, and the tramp slouched 
into the saloon at their heels. As he 
poured the liquor into the glass with a 
trembling hand, one of the young men 
said, " Make us a speech ! " 

The tramp swallowed down the liquor 
with a fierce thirst, then straightened 
himself and stood before them with a 



—AND WOULDN'T. 35 

grace and dignity that all his rags and 
dirt could not obscure. " Gentlemen," he 
said, " I look to-night at you and at my- 
self, and it seems to me I look upon the 
picture of my lost manhood. This 
bloated face was once as young and hand- 
some as yours. This shambling figure 
once walked as proudly as yours, a man 
in the world of men. I, too, once had a 
home and friends and position. I had a 
wife as beautiful as an artist's dream, and 
I dropped the priceless pearl of her honor 
and respect in the wine-cup. I had chil- 
dren as sweet and lovely as the flowers 
of spring, and I saw them fade and die 
under the blighting curse of a drunken 
father. To-day I am a husband without 
a wife, a father without a child, a tramp 
without a home to call his own, a man in 
whom every good impulse is dead — all, 
all swallowed up in the maelstrom of 
drink." 

The tramp ceased speaking. The glass 
fell from his nerveless fingers and shiv- 
ered into a thousand fragments on the 
floor. The swinging doors pushed open 



36 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

and shut again, and he was gone. Let 
the young man who is offered a glass of 
wine remember his sermon. 

But after Jacob had deceived his father 
and defrauded his brother he goes forth 
to Bethel, and it is at Bethel after he has 
had his dream that we hear him saying, 
"If God will— I will." 

But I should like to pause just a mo- 
ment here and give the story of Jacob's 
death as it is recorded in the forty-ninth 
and fiftieth chapters of Genesis. We 
have seen great buildings in process of 
erection, and have admired the magnitude 
of them ; but because of the scaffolding 
outside we have not been able to take in 
all the beauty of the architectural lines ; 
but, when the scaffolding is down, we 
look and wonder; and, when we read 
the story of Jacob's death, we find this 
wonderful character with the scaffolding 
removed. He is Jacob no longer, but 
Israel the prince, with his children about 
him, bestowing upon them a father's 
blessing and asking from them the prom- 
ise that he should be buried in that cele- 



--AND WOULDN'T. 37 

brated tomb where his illustrious dead 
are to-day waiting the resurrection morn- 
ing; and he closed his eyes and fell 
asleep only to awake in the presence of 
Him who in all the years of his wander- 
ings loved him and would not let him go. 
This picture is given over against the 
story of his deceit in order that we may 
not grow discouraged and say, If Jacob 
could be so mean a man, what hope can 
there be for the man like him to-day who 
finds it easier to do wrong than to do 
right? There is every hope, for God is 
our Father, Jesus Christ is our Saviour, 
and we are the objects of an everlasting 
love. I am very sure that when Jacob 
vowed his vow, " If God will — I will," he 
meant to do exactly what he said. 



As we study the story of his life and 
find him deceived by Laban, when Leah 
was substituted for Eachel, we learn the 
lesson that he was just reaping the har- 
vest he had sown. He was a deceiver, 
and he is himself deceived. We never 



38 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

can escape this law ; for real judgment 
cannot be evaded or avoided, eluded or 
bribed. We do not like to be paid in our 
own coin, and there is something very in- 
teresting in Jacob's amazement that he of 
all men should be deceived when the most 
of his time had been given up to deceiv- 
ing others. There is one text that ought 
to be written for us in letters of fire, " Be 
sure your sin will find you out." We 
may cover it over with good resolutions, 
but there will be a resurrection; never 
until Christ covers it with his own blood 
can it be blotted out. "Whatsoever a 
man soweth, that shall he also reap," and 
what he reaps he sows, and what he sows 
he reaps again. Sow r to the wind and 
reap the whirlwind ; sow deceit, reap 
deceit ; it is an inevitable rule and cannot 
be broken. 

II. 

But I learn also from the story of this 
man that he was just following the bent 
of his disposition: he was a deceiver 
from the beginning. He deceived him- 



— AND WOULDN'T. 39 

self because he thought he could defraud 
Esau without reaping a harvest, and he 
deceived Esau when he deprived him 
of his birthright, and he deceived 
his father when he attempted to talk 
like Esau, and dressed as Esau dressed, 
and he tried to deceive God, in the 
matter of the streaked cattle, he de- 
ceived Laban, and, when after the ex- 
perience at Jabbok he met Esau, he de- 
ceived him, for he said, " I will go on to 
Mount Seir," for he did not keep his 
word ; he was afraid of Esau, and did not 
like to journey with him, and so deceived 
him. Therefore he was but following the 
bent of his disposition. That is a danger- 
ous thing to do. There is not one of us 
but has a bent or tendency towards evil 
of one form or another; it might be 
pride or deceit or wilfulness or lust; 
whatever it is, if Christ is not put in the 
place of weakness, there will be danger. 

I would lift up a warning cry against 
little sins. 

A terrible record of death and disaster 
was made in Cleveland, resulting f rdm an 



40 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

explosion which occurred in the water- 
works tunnel. A mule-boy was in- 
structed to repair at noon an incandes- 
cent lamp which had become burned out 
during the morning. He obtained a new 
globe and fuse, and while the men were 
eating dinner attempted to adjust the 
globe and the fuse to the wire. A grain 
of sand had fallen into the f use-receptacle ; 
and, when the connections were made, 
this tiny sand-grain caused a spark. The 
gas in the tunnel, a quantity of which 
is always present, immediately exploded. 
Seven men were killed at once, others 
injured, and enormous loss of property 
entailed ; and yet only a single grain of 
sand caused it. Beware of single sins 
and little sins! One fatal sand-grain of 
evil may cause the spark which explodes 
and desolates the whole life. 

Yet singularly enough here we find the 
story of Jacob at Jabbok's ford, when he 
is within the grasp of the angel, and 
they wrestle together as men did in the 
Roman arena. 

" Let me go," cries the angel. 



— AND WOULDN'T. 41 

"I will not let thee go without a 
blessing," answers the deceiver of other 
days. 

" "What is thy name ? " asks the heavenly 
wrestler ; and then he was honest, for he 
said, " My name is Jacob." It was as if 
he had said, "I am a deceiver and a 
cheat," and the angel answers as he 
touches the hollow of his thigh, "Thy 
name shall be called Israel, for thou art 
a prince " ; and, while he limped away 
from that great struggle, yet he is in 
many ways a new man ; and I am very 
sure that the story is written in order 
that we might understand that if our 
natures are as deceitful as Jacob's we 
may be changed if we will but yield to 
the influence of this angel of the Lord, 
who is none other than Jesus himself. 

III. 

Yet let us not imagine that a Jabbok's 
experience means freedom from temp- 
tation or necessarily escape from sin. It 
might mean all of this, but Jacob \goes 
out to disobey once more. The word of 



42 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

the Lord came to him bidding him go to 
Bethel, but instead of that he wants to go 
to Shechem, and he does go. He looked 
towards the city, then pitched his tent in 
that direction, and finally bought a parcel 
of ground and built there ; but let us not 
condemn him, for we, too, have done the 
same thing. We have disobeyed God. 
We live on the very edge of the world, 
sometimes doing the things that are 
questionable, going just as far as we can 
without going over entirely to the enemy, 
and there is great danger. There is 
danger to others as well as to ourselves. 

It is said that between Fire Island and 
the southern end of Ireland are ten wrecks 
in the line taken by steamers sailing to 
and from New York. These derelicts, as 
they are called, are the hulls of wrecked 
vessels that, though they show but little 
or nothing above the water, form a fear- 
ful peril for the ocean steamer. There is 
perhaps no danger in ocean travel that 
gives the steamer captain so much serious 
anxiety as the derelict. 

Alas ! there are many moral derelicts in 



—AND WOULDN'T. 43 

our churches. Their names are on the 
church-rolls, but they are water-soaked 
and water-logged with worldliness. They 
carry no flag and no light, but they are 
dangerous to run against. It ought to be 
our purpose not to drift with the currents, 
but to sail somewhere with a definite 
purpose. The drifting soul is always 
a danger to others as well as in deadly 
peril itself. For, while Jacob dwelt at 
Shechem, his daughter Dinah fell into sin 
and all but broke the old man's heart. I 
should be afraid because of my influence 
over others to yield to sin or to practise 
iniquity. May Jacob's story be a warn- 
ing to us. 

James Stirling, the great temperance 
apostle of Scotland, was a drunkard until 
old age, and then became the greatest 
temperance evangelist of his day. He 
was to speak in Dundee when, just as he 
entered the church, a message came to 
him that his son was in the inn intox- 
icated. He returned to the inn, took him 
in his arms, carried him to his room, and 
sat with him until the stupor was gone, 



44 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

and then -held his hand as the son signed 
his name to the pledge never to drink 
again. He came back and delivered such 
a temperance address as has rarely been 
heard, and then went to his room to 
sleep ; but in the morning he was sum- 
moned to his son's room, where he found 
him dead. He had died by his own 
hand, and left this letter : " Dear Father : 
I did the best I could, but the old appe- 
tite came back and I went down. I knew 
it would kill you, and so I have killed 
myself. Good-bye." The old man read 
it through his tears, then fell upon his 
face upon the floor, and cried out, " My 
God, if I had been a different man, this 
never would have happened." 

May we not learn from Jacob the 
lesson that we are our brother's keeper 
whether we will or no ; and, if we fail to 
keep ourselves unspotted from the world 
in his behalf, we shall one day be called 
to an account ? 

IY. 

It is most interesting to read the 



— AND WOULDN'T. 45 

account of the final recovery of this man 
who said he would, and would n't. Gen. 
35: 1, — "And God said unto Jacob, 
Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there ; 
and make there an altar unto God, that 
appeared unto thee when thou fleddest 
from the face of Esau thy brother." 
There are so many of us like Jacob, and 
God still speaks to us. He wants us to 
be filled with peace and to lay hold upon 
blessing, but he would have us remember 
the vows that we have made, some of us 
possibly in other days, some of us perhaps 
to-day ; and he would help us keep those 
vows. 

There are certain things that always 
awaken a memory that is uplifting. 
With some it is the memory of an old 
home scene where with the father and 
the mother now in glory the sweet songs 
of the gospel were sung and God's pre- 
cious promises were read. A name, a 
flower, will sometimes bring before us a 
whole panorama of beautiful memories ; 
and so, when God said, " Go to Bethel," 
the memory of that day when he saw the 



46 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

angels and heard God speak was before 
him, and he said to those who were with 
him, " Put away your idols " ; and, when 
they brought their idols, he buried them 
by the oak ; and, thus freed from their 
contamination, he made his way back to 
Bethel to be Jacob no longer, but Israel 
the prince. 

It is the will of God that we should 
put away the things that have been our 
defeat in the past. It is his will that our 
weakness should be lost in his strength, 
and so I bid you if yours is a life of 
failure turn back to Bethel, pray as you 
used to pray, live as you used to live, and 
God will be most gracious. I would say 
a word, too, for those of you who are not 
yet Christians. It is God's will that you 
should be saved. When the rocks were 
throbbing at Calvary and the crosses 
were shaking, and when it was dark as 
midnight, although it was only noon, and 
Jesus said, " It is finished," it was as if 
he were saying, " I will," to the world, 
and from that moment to this every lost 
sinner could be saved if he would but yield. 



— AND WOULDN'T. 47 

As I was travelling the other day with 
a friend, he told me of a man in ISTew 
England who was just about to undergo 
a most critical operation. He was a be- 
liever in God, but not a believer in Christ. 
He could not accept his divinity, and the 
minister went to see him ; but, when 
asked about his hope for the future, he 
had none because he had rejected Christ ; 
and the minister said, " But, if he should 
reveal himself to you as your Saviour, 
you would accept him ? " 

" Certainly," said the man. 

So the minister prayed that this revela- 
tion might come, and at his suggestion 
the man prayed after this manner : " O 
Jesus, I have been feeling out after thee 
for years, and could not find thee. If 
thou wilt but reveal thyself to me as my 
Saviour, I will believe;" and then be- 
cause his eyes were not open the minister 
went quietly away, only to return a few 
days later when the operation was over, 
to find not the same face with sharp, 
drawn lines, but a face that was touched 
with glory and eyes that were constantly 



48 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

overflowing with tears. " I have seen 
him ; I have seen him," he exclaimed ; 
" for, the moment I said, ' I will ' to him 
the other day with eyes closed to shut 
out the world, he gave me a vision of his 
face, and I have seen him and do be- 
lieve." 

It is God's will that you should be 
saved. O that it might be your will to 
be accepted of him ! 






CHAPTER III. 

THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD— AND 
COULD N'T. 

Text : And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I 
will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. 
And he wist not that the Lord was departed from 
him. — Judges 16 : 20. 

Doubtless we are all familiar with 
what is known as a composite picture. 
It is like this : if a number of men should 
stand before the camera, the strong fea- 
tures of each face would come out prom- 
inently, and altogether a composite face 
could be made, which would at least be in- 
teresting to the student. The Bible pre- 
sents such a composite picture of human- 
ity. In Cain we have unbridled passions 
resulting in murder; in Abraham, a 
beautiful life whose prominent character- 
istic was faith ; in Jacob we behold the 
supplanter and the cheat transformed by 
the power of God into one who bo£e not 

49 



50 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

only a princely name, but was the pos- 
sessor of a princely nature ; in Moses we 
see one of the world's greatest leaders; 
but somehow it would seem that we 
needed Samson to complete the picture, 
in order that to all these characteristics 
that have been mentioned we might add 
that of physical strength ; for he was a 
mighty man indeed. 

Yet I doubt not that this Old Testa- 
ment story was written, among other 
reasons, for this, that we might know 
how trifling a thing, after all, human 
energy is, and that it might also reveal to 
us how easily the devil can overthrow it ; 
for, while in one picture we behold Sam- 
son glorying in his strength, the terror of 
his enemies, and the admiration of his 
friends, in another picture, when he has 
yielded to the adversaries, we find him a 
pitiable object of weakness and a man 
acquainted with despair. 



But he was a great man in spite of all 
his weakness. It would seem as if God 






— AND COULDN'T. 51 

could do no more for any one, in certain 
directions, at least, than he had done for 
Samson. From his birth, and before, he 
had showered upon him his best gifts. 

First of all, he had the best of parents ; 
of Manoah we learn not only in Scripture, 
but also in the writings of Josephus, that 
he was possessed of such virtue as few 
could equal ; and of his mother it was said 
that she was a woman, not only of great 
strength of character, but of rare beauty. 
His parents before his birth were in the 
hands of the Almighty, that he might in 
the fulness of time pour out some special 
blessing upon their son ; but it is not 
enough for us to lay claim to good par- 
entage ; yet at the same time there is 
hardly a greater blessing than to be well 
born. 

You may remember that other Old 
Testament story of Lot and his wife flee- 
ing together away from the doomed city ; 
but suddenly the wife turns to look back 
and becomes a pillar of salt, while Lot 
makes his way to the mountains for 
safety, all of which leads me to say that 



52 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

kinship with the saved does not ensure 
salvation. Lot's wife is lost while he 
himself is saved. 

Do not imagine that because you have 
the best of parents therefore you may be 
saved, for an act of faith on your part is 
essential to salvation ; and again we learn 
from this Old Testament account that 
endeavor that is but partial does not en- 
sure salvation. Lot's wife started as 
did he from the city, and for a little time 
she ran by his side ; but she stopped and 
was lost. Many of us have been almost 
persuaded in other days to be Christians, 
and we have started, as we supposed, be- 
cause we have given up this form of sin 
or that, but 

4 'Almost persuaded, harvest is past ; 
Almost persuaded, doom comes at last ; 
4 Almost ' cannot avail ; 
' Almost ' is but to fail ; 
Sad, sad, that bitter wail, 
Almost — but lost ! " 

Second, he was a man of great 
strength. He seemed as if he were all 



— AND COULDN'T. 53 

body. He was a real giant, but he was 
more than that. The simple possession 
of strength may be a very dangerous 
thing if that strength is not controlled. 
The more we have, the worse it is for us. 
Samson remembered his strength, and be- 
cause he wanted to avenge himself on the 
Philistines we read in Judges, the fif- 
teenth chapter and the fourth and fifth 
verses : " And Samson went and caught 
three hundred foxes, and took firebrands 
and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand 
in the midst between two tails. And 
when he had set the brands on fire, he let 
them go into the standing corn of the 
Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, 
and also the standing corn, with the vine- 
yards and olives." 

" I never could be a Christian," said a 
man to me in another city ; and when I 
asked him the reason, he said that it was 
because he had such a temper that he 
scarcely passed through a single day 
without some display of this temper, 
which to him was an awful thing; but I 
said to him what may be said to every 



54 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

one, that, while the mere possession of 
temper, pride or zeal, might be our de- 
feat, if these things were only under con- 
trol by one who is mightier than our- 
selves, they would be to us like steam to 
the engine, and become the secret of our 
success. 

Usually we see only one thing in a 
man, which leads me to say that Samson 
was more than a giant. If we should be 
asked to give at once our estimate con- 
cerning Moses, we should say he was a 
man of meekness, and yet we ought not 
to forget that he was one of the world's 
greatest leaders of men. If we were 
asked to give our opinion of Jeremiah, 
we should think of him as the weeping 
prophet, the one who said, " O that my 
head were waters, and mine eyes a foun- 
tain of tears, that I might weep day and 
night for the slain of the daughter of my 
people ! " but let us not forget that he 
was a great advocate, an eloquent man, 
and one who pleaded for Jehovah as very 
few men have pleaded ; and so the same 
is true of Samson. He was a great man 



— AND COULDN'T. 55 

in physical strength, but let it not be for- 
gotten that in the thirty-first verse of the 
sixteenth chapter of Judges in the clos- 
ing clause we read, "And he judged 
Israel twenty years." We are liable to 
forget that, and to think of him only as 
tying foxes' tails together and doing 
other things quite as startling ; but this 
is the way of the world. If a man does 
one bad thing, the world can hardly for- 
get it. It may pass over a thousand of 
his virtues, and the one weakness is ever 
prominent in the world's memory ; but it 
is a joy to know that we have to do with 
One who did not forget that Samson 
judged Israel twenty years and who does 
not forget our virtues, remembering even 
the cup of cold water to which the world 
might have been blind, but which he knew 
that we gave because of our desire to help 
him. 

II. 

This man who said he would, and 
couldn't, teaches us also a lesson that 
outward strength will surely perish. 



56 



THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 



Samson is under the influence of Delilah, 
and the Philistines have said to her, 
" Tell us the secret of his strength that 
we may overpower him ; " and she seeks 
by fascination to learn this secret. Sam. 
son tells her to bind him with green 
withes that have never been dried and 
he will be overcome, and she does so. 
He snaps these withes as if they had 
been a piece of tow; and then he tells 
her to bind him with a new cord that 
had never been used ; and, when the time 
came for the Philistines to lay hold upon 
him, he snapped the cord as if it had 
been a thread ; and then he tells her to 
weave the locks of his hair into the cord, 
and bind him to the beam and the pin ; 
and, when the enemy approaches him, he 
marches off with beam and pin as if he 
had not been bound at all ; and then 
finally he tells her that the secret of his 
strength was not in the length of his hair, 
but that this hair of his was the sign of 
the ISTazarite vow. He had vowed not to 
touch that which was unclean, and he 
said to her that if the hair be shaved from 



— AND COULDN'T. 57 

his head his strength would depart ; and 
she soothes him to sleep, and his locks 
are shorn, and there is a great trans- 
formation for the worse. 

I suppose there may be some one whose 
eye may light upon this page who is de- 
pending upon human strength. "I do 
not need Christ," said a man to me not 
long ago, " for I have a strong intellect. 
I can think for myself, and so long as I 
feel this consciousness of strength I shall 
walk alone ; " but let it not be forgotten 
that the strongest intellect may fail and 
the strongest man become as a little child 
again. " I do not need to be a Christian, 
for I have will-power enough to resist 
evil. I have determined that I will live 
a clean life and will not be intemperate," 
said another man; but one's will-power 
may give way, and the man who was a 
giant yesterday may be a child to-day ; 
and then there are others of us who are 
putting our confidence in the help our 
loved ones can give to us, but they may 
die, and then what ? 

I happened to know of a young man 



58 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

who broke his father's heart, and put him 
in an untimely grave, and then fled away 
from his mother, refusing to comfort her 
in her sorrow, only to find out when he 
was on the Pacific coast that she was 
dying ; but it is a long journey from coast 
to coast, and when he reached New York 
the mother was dead. A friend saw him 
wending his way to the cemetery, and be- 
held him as he read his mother's name 
cut in the tombstone, and then saw him 
as he fell upon his face and cried out, 
" She has gone, she has gone, and who 
will pray for me now ? " O, if we are 
depending upon human energy or upon 
the strength of others, we shall one day 
of all persons be the most miserable, for 
human strength may be as nothing to us, 

III. 

After Samson's locks had been shorn 
he speaks the words of our text : " And 
he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will 
go out as at other times before, and shake 
myself. And he wist not that the Lord 
was departed from him" (Judg. 16 : 20). 



— AND COULDN'T. 59 

Picture him if you can going forth into 
the presence of the people. He has 
broken his vow; he has lost his touch 
with God, and therefore lost his power. 
All the outer man is there, but it is like a 
temple without God. He knew not that 
his strength had departed. He was like 
a walking skeleton; he had eyes, but 
could not see, a mouth, but could not 
speak, and ears, but could not hear. 

What an illustration he is of the loss 
of spiritual power ! See him as he stands. 
The people breathlessly draw away from 
him ; for he is the same giant in stature, 
and they do not know whether to fear 
him or not. He is physically the same, 
muscle and sinew, bone, nerve, and beat- 
ing heart ; but something is gone. He is 
like many of us who have been shorn of 
our power just because of one sin. You 
may remember that sin to-day ; it was off 
in another city, and you had the choice 
between good and evil; and you said, 
" No one will know, and it is but for this 
once, and I am a stranger in a strange 
land ; " and from that day till this you 



60 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

have been crying out in an agony, "O, 
that I knew where peace might be 
found ! " and I will tell you where you 
can find it; go back where you broke 
your vow and missed your step with 
Christ, and start again. 

A railway brakeman was discharged 
from a hospital in Sedalia, Mo., after four 
months' treatment for a tarantula-bite. 
He touched a tarantula, and was bitten 
on the tip of the middle finger of the 
right hand. He felt a sharp pang of pain 
at the time, but paid little attention to it, 
and went on with his work. The bitten 
finger began to slough off. The hand 
and arm were soon swollen to three times 
their natural size. The finger was ampu- 
tated again and again, but the wound 
would not heal. The surgeons were com- 
pelled to continue to follow the hand 
back, and finally made twenty-nine am- 
putations in all ; and he thought himself 
very fortunate to save his life with the 
loss of his arm. The poison of the 
spider-bite had become so thoroughly in- 
fused into his system that it was almost 






— AND COULDN'T. 61 

impossible to overcome it, and his final 
recovery was considered almost a miracle. 

All about us are men who have been 
bitten with strong drink, who have lost 
property, and good habits, and good 
character, and love of children and wife, 
and hope of heaven ; and their system has 
been so thoroughly poisoned that unless 
saved by some miraculous cleansing 
through the blood of Jesus Christ they 
must be lost forever. 

Let us not boast. Here is a man who 
is honest ; he may be so, but how about 
purity? and here is another who lays 
claim to being pure, but how about in- 
temperance ? and here is still another who 
claims to be temperate, but how about 
honesty ? So many of us boast of strong 
points, and quite forget about the weak 
tendencies. All of us need Christ ; with- 
out him we shall fail. 

In connection with the story of Samson 
note, first, the persistency of the adver- 
sary. Samson showed his weakness be- 
cause he did not immediately resist, but 
he trifled with the tempter. 



62 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

Animal-trainers say that the secret of 
handling safely all beasts of the cat 
species, such as lions, tigers, and leopards, 
is to keep them constantly afraid of you. 
The instant they get over their fear, they 
■will attack any one who crosses their 
path. They are all treacherous, too, and 
often gather courage for an attack when 
the master's eyes are turned away from 
them, although they would not dare re- 
volt if he faced them. One never knows 
when they will get over their fear and 
spring at the keeper if they have a chance 
to do it from behind. 

Our fight with the devil is like that. 
He is always seeking to attack us from 
the rear or in ambush. The devil goes 
about like a roaring lion, seeking whom 
he may devour ; but he is a great coward 
when faced with courage. " Eesist the 
devil, and he will flee from you " is as 
true in our time as it was when the apos- 
tle James first made the declaration. 

Second, he ignored the strength of the 
adversary. I can imagine how when he 
snapped the green withes, and broke the 



— AND COULDN'T. 63 

new cords, and walked away with the 
beam and the pin, he must have laughed 
his enemies to scorn. It is a dangerous 
thing for a man to ignore the strength of 
the great tempter. 

A young lady in Morristown, N". J., 
grasped the guy-wire on the electric-light 
pole in front of her father's house, to see 
whether she could get a slight shock. 
Her hand was suddenly contracted by a 
powerful current which swept through 
her body. The young girl screamed in 
agony. She writhed and twisted, and 
fell to the ground ; but she could not 
relax her hold upon the live wire, which 
was burning her hands, for she had 
reached up with her left hand to tear her 
•right hand away. 

Men and boys ran towards her, but not 
one dared to put out a hand to save the 
girl. Then her mother ran out. " Oh, 
mamma," cried the girl, " save me ! My 
hands are burning up!" The mother 
quickly grasped her daughter around the 
waist, but was hurled to the ground ^s if 
by the blow of a club. Finally a man 



<8i THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

came up with presence of mind enough 
to take an axe and sever the wire. He 
was in time to save the girl's life, but she 
was fearfully burned. 

The incident suggests tragedies that 
are taking place every day before our 
eyes. Many people are willing to tamper 
with sin, and run the risk of a slight 
shock. A boy likes to drink a glass of 
wine that will make his nerves tingle, 
and many are asking themselves, " How 
far can I go in the wrong way without 
being overthrown?" That is the way 
the devil fishes for men and women. 
People grasp his wires, and get a slight 
shock, and only laugh at danger ; but 
some day they take hold of a live wire 
that has all the fire of hell in it, and they 
are struck through and through with 
death. It is better not to play with the 
devil's wires at all. 

Third, temptation comes gradually. 
Just inch by inch Delilah wore Samson 
out until at last he exclaims, "I am a 
Nazarite," and he gives her the secret of 
his power ; and in a little time he is as 



— AND COULDN'T, 65 

weak as the weakest of all his enemies. 
The trouble with us is that we harbor an 
impure thought to-day, and yield to just 
the slightest temptation to-morrow, and 
before we know it we are overthrown. 

IV. 

With every sin comes the blunting of 
one's moral capacity by which is detected 
the presence of evil. There was a time 
when the thought of dishonesty made 
you shudder, and the idea of impurity 
made you blush, when the consideration 
of intemperance roused all the manhood 
there was in you, and you hated this form 
of sin with bitter hatred. The time was 
when you were the last person in all the 
world,to think that you would ever finally 
reject Christ ; but you have yielded just 
a little to these things, and now you treat 
them indifferently, and your heart has 
become hardened, and you are going to 
be like this " man who said he would, and 
could n't," for the Lord is departed from 
you. "\ 



66 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 



" He wist not that the Lord was de- 
parted " ; so gradually had this strength 
been taken from him in his trifling with 
the adversary. I can see him as he rises, 
saying in the text, "I will now shake 
myself," and he attempts to lift his arms 
and move his body, only to find that he 
is powerless. He has trifled once too 
often. 

It is said that there is on the Niagara 
River a placed called " Past Eedemption 
Point " ; for you may drift on the river 
with safety up to a certain place, and 
from there on there is danger ; for men 
stand on the banks of the river, and 
shout to those who are coming near, 
" Danger ahead, danger ahead ; " but, if 
you allow yourself to pass the point, only 
the falls with an awful death are before 
you ; and so men have drifted along in 
their relations to Christ. The minister 
has warned them; friends have pleaded 
with them ; and the danger is that they 



— AND COULDN'T. 67 

may be passing this Past Redemption 
Point, and do not realize it; and so I 
make an appeal to all who do not know 
Christ to choose him while yet it is called 
to-day, and there would be joy in every 
heart if those who have resisted times 
without number should cry out, " Nay, 
but I yield, I yield ; I can hold out no 
more." 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD—AND 
DID. 

Text : For I determined. — 1 Corinthians 2 : 2. 

In these words we find the secret of 
the apostle's power and likewise the se- 
cret of the great success of his life ; that 
is, his Christian life, which stretched out 
from Damascus to the eternal city, and 
he never wavered in his determination. 
He passed through experiences that would 
have turned other men aside, but not so 
this man. 

He must have had the same determined 
disposition before his conversion. This 
is certainly evident, for after he had seen 
Jesus and heard him speak that force 
which made him the dreaded foe is all 
subdued, and he becomes the most power- 
ful friend that Jesus of Nazareth ever 
had in this world. He was a man of one 
idea. This must have been true before 

68 






— AND DID. 69 

his conversion. I can imagine him de- 
termining to go to Jerusalem and sit at 
the feet of Gamaliel, and allowing noth- 
ing of the pleasure of the great city, as it 
was then known, to turn him aside until 
he has won the crown and he is himself a 
master in all intellectual equipments. 

We certainly find this in his persecu- 
tion of the church; for, when once he 
has entered upon this career, he is never 
satisfied until he has persecuted the 
Christians even unto strange cities, cast 
them into prison, and if possible beaten 
them with stripes ; but after his conver- 
sion in a remarkable degree it is true that 
he was a man of one idea. " This one 
thing I do," he said, and he kept his 
word. " None of these things move me," 
he declared when he had determined to 
go to Jerusalem; not even bonds or 
afflictions could turn him aside; and 
when he reaches the end of his remark- 
able career, he can look back over it all 
and say with commendable pride, " I have 
fought a good fight, I have finished my 
course, I have kept the faith." 



70 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

How obstacles do melt away when one 
is desperately in earnest ! If you walk 
down the streets in a busy city in a leis- 
urely fashion, you will find your progress 
difficult ; but, if you are on a mission and 
walk with enthusiasm, you will find that 
unconsciously people get out of your way 
and the journey is comparatively easy. 
There are some men whose lives we can- 
not study without thinking that they 
were sent of God to do a special work at 
a special time, which no one else could 
possibly have done; for them to fail 
would have been to hinder the plan of 
God. 

Of course every one is sent of God. 
Concerning John the Baptist in the Gos- 
pels we read, " There was a man sent 
from God, whose name was John." It 
was suggested to me not long ago that it 
would be a good plan if we were to drop 
John's name out of this, and put our own 
in. " There was a man sent from God 

whose name was " ; and, if our 

name should be written in this blank 
space and we had found that in the Bible, 



—AND DID. 71 

that would have made it no more certain 
that we are called of God to do a special 
work than it has been ever since we be- 
came Christians. Luther was a man 
whom God had used to do a particular 
work at a particular time ; so was Knox ; 
so was Charles G. Finney; and so 
was D. L. Moody; and yet of Paul 
this was especially true. He came 
upon the field of action while the 
church was yet in her infancy, when she 
needed him, when a few fisher-folk and a 
company of very ordinary people made up 
the membership; and his great mind 
swayed theirs, and his mighty influence 
was used of God to mould the whole 
company. 

The gospel shows what it can do with 
a man like Peter as we read his story, 
and we are quite aware that it can re- 
claim the outcast, save the drunkard, and 
redeem the harlot ; but the gospel here 
shows us what it can do with a man like 
Paul, one of the greatest intellects not 
only of his time but of all time. x He 
would have been great whether he had 



72 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

been a Christian or not. Of the other 
disciples possibly this would not have 
been true. We doubtless should not 
have heard of Peter, James, or John ; 
but concerning Saul of Tarsus the world 
would have learned, for he was truly a 
great man. 

He was great in his unselfishness. 
" What things were gain to me, those I 
counted loss for Christ," he said, and I 
doubt not he was as anxious for gain as 
the rest of us. 

He was great in his influence. In the 
sixteenth chapter of Acts he has only to 
sit beside a woman on the banks of the 
river, and she who had been a seller of 
purple is baptized, and became a part of 
the body of Christ. 

He was great because he was not easily 
discouraged. " I know how to abound," 
he said, "and to suffer need." In the 
eighteenth chapter of Acts, the first 
verse, we read that after these things he 
leaves Athens and goes to Corinth. 
After what things? If you will read 
the seventeenth chapter of the Acts, you 



— AND DID. 73 

will find that humanly speaking he had 
met with failure at Athens ; philosophers 
had mocked him, and only a few people 
of little consequence had accepted his 
message. A preacher in these modern 
times would have grown disheartened, 
possibly turned to some other avenue of 
usefulness, but not so Paul the apostle. 
He makes his way to Corinth, and it was 
to these Corinthians he said, " I deter- 
mined not to know anything among you 
save Jesus Christ and him crucified." 

He was great in his illustrations; so 
was his Master, and he was but following 
in the Master's footsteps. But Jesus 
dwelt in the country and lived in small 
towns, and therefore drew his illustra- 
tions from the grass at his feet, the 
flowers that bloomed around him, and 
the birds of song about him. Paul was 
a city man, and drew his stories from the 
crowded streets, the busy wharves, the 
games in the arena, and other things that 
city people knew all about. 

He was great as a preacher. Whether 
he is in prison and in chains, whether he 



74 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

is at Antioch or on Mars' Hill, he is a 
preacher. I never have seen such a man ; 
in season and out of season, by day and 
by night he preaches; with back bleed- 
ing, head aching, and body, O so weary 
that an ordinary man could scarcely think, 
he preaches because he had said he would 
and did. 

The date of his birth we do not know, 
only this, that when Jesus was a boy in 
Nazareth, playing upon the streets of 
this beautiful town, over beyond Lebanon 
another boy named Saul was playing ; 
but his whole life from childhood to pre- 
mature old age is an inspiration. There 
never was such singleness of purpose ex- 
hibited in any man, never such untiring 
energy, never such difficulties met with- 
out complaint, never such sufferings 
borne with rejoicing, as in the life of this 
man who said he would and did. In 
him it was literally true that Jesus Christ 
went forth to conquer the world, using 
his hands and feet in desert and plain. 
He was a hero, this Paul the apostle; 
and in the light of these statements we 






— AND DID. 75 

begin to understand what he meant when 
he said, " I live ; yet not I, but Christ 
liveth in me." There are some things 
that he determined to do that I will 
mention. 

I. He Determined to do the Will 
of God. 

With the story of his conversion we 
are doubtless familiar. He is on his way 
to Damascus to persecute the church. 
It is high noon ; the sun is shining brill- 
iantly upon the white buildings of the 
old city; but suddenly he is stricken 
down, and in a most remarkable way he 
is converted. " What wilt thou have me 
to do ? " he asks of him whose voice he 
hears, and then and there he determined 
that he would do the will of this new 
Master of his. How may we know 
God's will? I am sure this question is 
in the minds of many. 

In answer to the question how to find 
out God's will Professor Drummond read 
the following from the fly-leaf o^ hi§ 
Testament : 



76 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

"First, pray. Second, think. Third, 
talk to wise people, but do not regard 
their decision as final. Fourth, beware 
of the bias of your own will, but do not 
be too much afraid of it. God never un- 
necessarily thwarts a man's nature and 
likings, and it is a mistake to think that 
his will is in the line of the disagreeable. 
Fifth, meantime do the next thing, for 
doing God's will in small things is the 
best preparation for knowing it in great 
things. Sixth, when decision and action 
are necessary, go ahead." "You will 
probably not find out till afterwards, per- 
haps long afterwards, that you have been 
led at all." 

It has been said that the Bible is God's 
will in words, that nature is God's will in 
force, that our circumstances are God's 
will in our every-day affairs. 

There are three things that Paul did 
which we should do well to remember. 

First, he was blind, and in his blindness 
he lost the world's vision and saw Christ. 
The trouble with us is, we look down too 
much and up too little, in too frequently 



—AND DID. 77 

and not out enough. We are too much 
taken up with the world's affairs to know 
well the interests of the kingdom of 
heaven. It is said that, when artists 
have been working for a long time at 
their easels, their vision becomes dim, and 
they look down at a handful of little 
bright pebbles on the easel that their 
vision may be toned up. If we would 
know God's will, we need to look up, shut 
our eyes, and look ; for we can see further 
into the plans of God with eyes shut than 
with them open. 

Second, he began immediately to work. 
Acts 9 : 20, " And straightway he preached 
Christ in the synagogues, that he is the 
Son of God." 

A man went to Mr. Moody to say that 
he was miserable. He was a Christian, 
but without joy. Then said Mr. Moody : 
" Begin to do something. Confess Christ 
to the first man you meet." This first 
man happened to be a stranger on the 
streets waiting with him for a car, and 
the one whose heart had been cold for so 
long said as they talked about the meet- 
ly tfC. 



78 TEE MAN WHO SAID EE WOULD 

ing, " I am a Christian, are you ? I be- 
lieve in Christ with all my heart, do you ? " 
and then fairly ran back into the pres- 
ence of Mr. Moody to say, " My heart is 
overflowing with joy." 

Third, he went over into Arabia for a 
quiet time with God, and then simply 
obeyed what God commanded him. 
Obedience is the organ of spiritual vi- 
sion. " If any man will do his will, he 
shall know." It is a great thing to do 
God's will, but it is a greater thing to 
will to do it ; for he who is willing may 
have nothing to do but wait, and it is 
easier always to work than to wait ; but, 
if you would know God's will, do the 
thing that lies just at your hand, and do 
it well ; and the way will open to larger 
and better things. 

II. He Determined to Preach. 

That was a great scene when he was 
over in Arabia. Arabia throbs with holy 
memories. There the bush burned ; there 
Elijah heard the still small voice ; there 
the manna fell from the skies ; and there 



— AND DID. 79 

God had walked and talked with men. 
If we would know what Paul believed 
about the gospel, we need only read Gala- 
tians and Eomans. What strange views 
men hold concerning the gospel! We 
say that such a man is a gospel preacher, 
and immediately we think of him as a 
ranting and irresponsible evangelist, or 
else we say that he is one who tells little 
stories and interests only little children, 
which is nothing against the man, rather 
to his credit ; only it is said with a sneer. 
Paul's idea of the gospel was simply 
superb. An analysis of his epistles would 
reveal the fact that, — 

First, he knew that men were longing 
for righteousness and in all the ages had 
been blindly reaching out after it. 

Second, he knew that men had failed 
in their desire, for he had himself ; and 
he taught that in Adam all had fallen, 
and there was no difference, for all had 
sinned and come short of the glory of God. 

Third, man's extremity was God's op- 
portunity ; for as in Adam all died, even 
so in Christ could all be made alive. ^\ 



80 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

Fourth, he believed that from Adam 
we inherited not only the guilt of sin, but 
a carnal nature; and he taught that in 
Christ we have by his sacrificial death 
had the guilt removed, and by regenera- 
tion have had implanted within us the 
very life of God which would overpower 
our tendency to evil. 

Fifth, he knew that all this could be 
received by faith alone, for he had re- 
ceived, and from the day of his accept- 
ance had been overflowing with joy. 

Sixth, he taught that, when once we 
are united to Christ, nothing can ever sep- 
arate us from his love, nothing in the 
heavens above, nothing in the earth be- 
neath, can ever take us from his hand. 

Seventh, he believed that even though 
we were Christians we should be obliged 
to pass through trial and tribulation, but 
he held that "our light affliction, which 
is but for a moment, worketh for us a 
far more exceeding and eternal weight 
of glory." 

Eighth, he taught that we should 
finally be free from this and as we went 



— AND DID. 81 

looking up into the heavens the Saviour 
would come and change these bodies of 
our humiliation, fashioning them like 
unto his own glorious body. 

Ninth, he believed that this Saviour of 
whom he preached would come again. 

This is Paul's gospel ; no wonder is it 
that he preached it with joy. It is easy 
to understand how with such a message 
he could preach in season and out of 
season, in prison and out of prison, and 
could say, "I am not ashamed of the 
gospel of Christ," even to preach it in the 
city of Eome, at that time the world's 
centre so far as intellectual power and 
social position were concerned. This is 
the man who said he would, and did. 

III. He Determined to go to 
Jerusalem. 

In Acts the twentieth chapter, the 
twenty-second, twenty-third and twenty- 
fourth verses, we read, "And now, be- 
hold, I go bound in the spirit unto 
Jerusalem, not knowing the things that 
shall befall me there; save that the 



82 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, 
saying that bonds and afflictions abide 
me. But none of these things move me, 
neither count I my life dear unto myself, 
so that I might finish my course with 
joy, and the ministry, which I have re- 
ceived of the Lord Jesus, to testify the 
gospel of the grace of God." He is now 
about sixty years of age ; for twenty 
years he has been preaching ; his body is 
worn by disease, bruised with much pun- 
ishment ; his hair is whitened and his face 
is furrowed. What a rebuke to those of 
us who have done nothing for Christ, and 
what we have done we have complained 
about! He goes to Jerusalem because 
he cannot help it ; bound in the spirit he 
finds himself, and that is power. He 
was thinking of the same thing when he 
said, " Woe is unto me if I preach not the 
gospel." What were bonds and afflic- 
tions to him when the consciousness of 
the presence of Christ was with him ? 

There are two ways of meeting trouble. 
One way : a man stands beside an open 
grave in which he has buried the best of 



— AND DID. 83 

his life, and clinches his fists, and sets his 
teeth, and says with grim determination, 
" I will pass through it ; I will endure it ; 

I will not break down ; " but this is not 
the spirit of the Christianc His spirit is 
that of the apostle Paul in this story. He 
stands beside the open grave, weeping as if 
his heart would break, for he would not be 
human if he did not weep, but looking up 
through his tears into heaven to say, 

II Though he slay me, yet will I trust in 
him ; the Lord gave and the Lord hath 
taken away." This was what Paul meant 
when he said, " Bonds and afflictions abide 
me;" but none of these things moved 
him, for he walked with Christ ; and 
with Christ every burden is easier to 
bear and every pain has had its sting 
removed. 

IV. And He Detekmined to go to 
Kome. 

The account of his going is in the 
twenty-seventh chapter of Acts. How 
like the journey of this life this is ! In 
the fourth verse the winds are contrary ; 



84 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

in the eighth verse he* enters Fair Ha- 
vens ; in the thirteenth verse the south 
wind blows ; in the eighteenth verse the 
tempest is upon hirn ; in the fortieth and 
forty-first verses the vessel is ship- 
wrecked. "We have all of us had the 
contrary winds in the beginning of life's 
journey ; and we doubtless many of us 
have entered fair havens, and we laugh 
at the entreaty of the minister to lay 
hold upon Christ ; and the south wind 
has been blowing against us, which only 
emboldens us the more; and suddenly 
we find ourselves in the tempest when 
the boat is wrecked and all aboard lost. 
How thankful we are to say that ship- 
wreck is not necessary, for with Christ 
we may be safe ! Paul was so in all his 
experiences. 

Finally he enters Eome, gray-haired, 
prematurely aged, chained as a prisoner ; 
his path lay along the way which many 
a conqueror had travelled before ; but no 
car of victory was for him, no medals 
were on his breast, no admiring crowds 
welcomed him. The chain dangled at 



— AND DID. 85 

his wrists, and yet Rome never had such 
a conqueror. 

Here he stands before Nero. What a 
contrast there is! Nero stained with 
every crime, the murderer of his own 
mother, his soul steeped in every known 
and unknown vice; and Paul bearing 
about in his body the marks of the Lord 
Jesus. 

At last we see him in prison, and as we 
stand beside him we see him write to 
Timothy and say, "It is a damp cell I am 
in, Timothy, my beloved son in the gos- 
pel; send me the old cloak I used to 
wear ; " and then we see him write once 
more, " It is a lonesome place ; and so, my 
son, I bid you come to me." 

The end of his journey is near, and we 
find him writing to Timothy these words : 
" For I am now ready to be offered, and 
the time of my departure is at hand. I 
have fought a good fight, I have finished 
my course, I have kept the faith ; hence- 
forth there is laid up for me a crown of 
righteousness, which the Lord, the right- 
eous judge, shall give me at that day ; 



86 THE MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD 

and not to me only, but unto all them 
also that love his appearing " (2 Tim. 
4:6-8). 

And they lead him forth, and he dies 
for the sake of Him who loved him and 
gave himself for him. Sin has done its 
worst ; yet it has only opened the prison 
door and let the soul go free. Kome 
would not have him, but ten thousand 
times ten thousand greeted him at the 
gates of heaven, welcoming him with 
shouts of rejoicing ; and the Master him- 
self must have said, " Well done, well 
done ; enter thou into the joy of thy 
Lord." 

And why is it, may I ask, that Paul 
did not fail as Peter failed ? For various 
reasons. He did not follow afar off ; he 
kept in close touch ; he separated himself 
absolutely from the world, and lived only 
for his Master. And why is it that Paul 
did not fail as Jacob failed? For the 
simple reason that, when he gave himself 
to Christ, he made no reservations ; all 
there was of him was Christ's. There 
was no room in his heart for deceit and 



—AND DID. 87 

no time in his life for the practice of in- 
iquity. He was the bond-servant of 
Jesus Christ, living for him with every 
breath that he drew, and counting it a 
joy to die for him rather than to deny 
him. And why is it that Paul did not 
make the failure that Samson did ? 
Simply because he hated sin, and he never 
trifled with the great adversary; and, 
hating sin, he knew that Christ was the 
only Saviour. In every time of tempta- 
tion he fled to him ; in every hour of 
trial he leaned hard upon him. It was 
for this reason that he has well earned 
the title of the subject of this chapter, 
" The man who said he would, and did." 



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,Our 
Workers' 
Library. 



16mo, cloth bindings, 35c. each, postpaid. 
All twelve volumes, $3.25, postpaid. 

THE OFFICERS' HANDBOOK. B y Amos r. Weils, a 

manual for the officers of young people's societies, together with 
chapters upon parliamentary law, business meetings, etc. 

FIFTY MISSIONARY PROGRAMMES. By Belie M. 
Brain. Valuable suggestions upon ideal missionary meetings, to- 
gether with fifty entirely different programmes for missionary meet- 
ings, treating all missionary lands and all phases of the subject. 

THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. By Amos R. Wells. The 

most complete handbook of methods for missionary work in young 
people's societies ever published. 

FUEL FOR MISSIONARY FIRES. By Belie m. Brain. 
115 pages of practical plans for missionary committees. Everything 
tried and proved. 

PRAYER-MEETING METHODS. By Amos R. wells. 
This book contains by far the most comprehensive collection of 
prayer-meeting plans ever made. 

SOCIAL EVENINGS. By Amos R. Wells. This is the most 
widely used collection of games and social entertainments ever made. 

SOCIAL TO SAVE. By Amos R. Wells. A companion volume 
to " Social Evenings." A mine of enjoyment for the society and 
home circle. 

OUR UNIONS. By Amos R. Wells. Wholly devoted to Christian 
Endeavor unions of all kinds, their officers, work, and conventions. 

WEAPONS FOR TEMPERANCE WARFARE. By 

Belle M. Brain. Full of ammunition for temperance meetings. 
Hundreds of facts, illustrations, suggestions, programmes. 

NEXT STEPS. By Rev. W. F. McCauley. A book for every 
Christian Endeavor worker. It is a storehouse of suggestions. 

CITIZENS IN TRAINING. By Amos R. Wells. A complete 
manual of Christian citizenship. Written especially for those that 
desire to make their country better. 

EIGHTY PLEASANT EVENINGS. A book of social en- 
tertainments intended for young people's societies, church workers, 
temperance unions, and for individual use. 

— m — 

UNITED SOCIETY OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR, 

Boston and Chicago. 



AUG 1 1 19° 2 



I uUr \ ULL. 10 CAT, DIV, 
AUG, 11 1902 

AUG. 15 1902 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 1 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

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